7 Game-Changing Workload Management Tips for Small Teams

Even the most skilled and intentional leaders encounter roadblocks when team members lose motivation, projects aren’t moving on their predicted time schedule and it’s not clear what needs to happen next. 

For leaders seeking proven productivity tips, this roadblock might be a sign that you need to switch gears and improve your workload management skills. 

Workload management is a true game changer for anyone working in teams. It helps you to plan and distribute work equally across your team for smooth-sailing and better Mondays all around.

Is it
too good to be true? Nope!

Any seasoned project manager will agree that the key to a successful project is effective workload management.

When we focus on enhancing workload management for a project, we essentially build a strategic approach that enables team members to do their best work, boosting the likelihood of successful outcomes and improving the collaboration experience for everyone on your team. 

In this article, learn the basics of workload management for small teams, so you can develop the tools your team needs to get work done, completely hustle-free!

Eager to know how? Then read on for more.

What Is Workload Management?

Think about building a project like growing a plant: You need to nurture the growth process step by step to ensure that your plant will thrive. Too much of anything at the wrong stage can kill your little seedling (nooo!!). This may sound obvious, but the truth is that one of the most common reasons that projects fail is due to poor planning.

And that's exactly where workload management comes into play. Workload management is commonly described as a multi-step process that aims to equally distribute work among each team member, assigning tasks to them that are fully in line with their skills. At the same time, you're getting a grip on project management by tracking each member's performance, giving you insight into your project's overall success.

Workload Management for Small Teams

So why is workload management important for small teams? 

According to the Harvard Business Review, efficient workload management can reduce the risk of burnout among team members. Âč On top of it, this approach helps to enhance team resource management (i.e. delegation below the management level). For small teams with limited resources, workload management is an essential investment of time and energy.

Here are a few things that workload management can help you to achieve as a team-leader:

  • Prioritize tasks more efficiently

  • Improve the balance of work across your team

  • Establish guidelines for delegating tasks within your team

  • Prevent over-work and burnout from a systems perspective

  • Cultivate sustainable and healthy workplace culture

All of these amazing benefits come simply from sharing your team’s overall workload. Brilliant, right? Let's now explore how to create effective workload management in detail:

1. Plan Everything Ahead

This might sound obvious, but planning ahead is so important that it cannot be overstated! First, identify all of the tasks that guide you toward your collective goal. Then, list them in order of importance, so that you can figure out which tasks you need to prioritize and which tasks can be left alone for now.

2. Distribute Work Fairly

When you distribute work fairly among team members, you’re not only raising the chances of success; you're also achieving your goal without over-stressing your team. For this reason, you need to ensure that you assign tasks to each member of your team that are fully in line with their set of skills, capacity, and any agreements you’ve made.

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3. Set Deadlines

Marking milestones is incredibly important in this stage because it sets expectations and gives team members a chance to voice concerns about the proposed timeline. If hitting deadlines has been an issue for your team in the past, confirm with your team members that the deadline you propose is do-able, allows everyone to take regular breaks and stay fresh, and encourages problem-solve without excessive time pressure.

When you set deadlines with your team instead of for them, you are setting up safeguards to prevent overload while boosting visibility and control over the overall team’s workflow, which boosts collective motivation.

Use a hybrid to-do list calendar to keep everyone on track, and build celebrations into meeting deadlines to encourage your team.

female manager on a laptop

4. Use Workload Management Tools

As you probably know, trying to monitor your project can be incredibly time and energy-consuming if done manually. But if there's a single tip any good project manager would give, it’s to invest in efficient workload management software. Software like Float or Teamhood allow you to track time and plan your work completely stress-free.

5. Monitor Your Project Step-By-Step

Now it’s time to watch your plant grow! Regularly checking up on your team’s progress, is, of course, vital to setting the course for success. Set clear performance indicators for your team members and make sure that everyone understands how you’ll use the data as you move along. Create shared to-do lists so everyone can track progress together.

team meeting

6. Check In with Team Members Regularly

Gathering insight from team members on a regular basis is always a good idea. When things are going smoothly, check-ins offer an opportunity to acknowledge work well done and build trust. And when things don’t go as planned, check-in sessions present an opportunity to build group accountability around problem-solving.

If the challenge involves a specific team member, address this 1:1 before bringing the problem to the group.Regular check-ins, both 1:1 and group, will increase the likelihood that your team members will come to you with issues before they escalate into confrontational situations.

7. Avoid Multitasking

In an attempt to move from good to better (and eventually best - who doesn’t want that?!), we often fall into the trap of doing too many different tasks at once.

But remember, the enemy of good is best!

Because of this, the number one item on your not-to-do list as a team leader should be multi-tasking. As a team leader, remember that you are modelling the kind of task-management you expect from your team members. Find ways to incentivize focused work, like quiet times during the workday if you’re collaborating in an office, group getting-things-done sessions and progress tracking systems that keep everyone on task. 

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